I've been slowly reading through the book and here are a few things Ive learned

Characteristics:
Strength, Constituition, Dexterity, Power, Charasima, Intelligence, and Size
You can roll or there is a point assign option
(I'm having a really hard time accepting size as a stat, human range is 8-18, a dragon size is 50, which means is about 320cm (13' tall, weighing about 1000 lbs which seems almost small for a dragon, there may be some monster size ive not gotten to yet tho )

Game is skill based using percentile roll under mechanic
22 general skills, a wide range of suggested professional skills

Pick a culture (Barbarian, Civilized, Nomadic or Primative)
Option to pick 3 new professional skills, add 100 points between them and general skills, pick your cultural Passions

Background (big chart)

Pick a career, generally your culture determines which careers are open to you, careers grant access to additional professional skills, then get another 100 skill points to divvy up between skills, determine if your career grants access to magic, also decide if you want to join a cult/brotherhood

Pick an age, how old you are determines your final skill allotment, and how much your skills can improve

Get your gear and get playing

There are no classes, there are no levels, your choices determine what skills you have, and which you are best at, its entirely possible to be terrible at all skills, or to start with a skill or 2 close to 70 or 80...

Magic isnt a section Ive read yet... but character creation seems interesting
That size is a stat is really.. really bugging me tho

I always considered 25-50% of a monsters wealth suitable to be used to buy gear, consumables, hire retainers etc

Otherwise you end up with some really absurd situations like

Wow, a potion of cure serious wounds.. good thing he kept that in a locked safe, where it was useless...

Of course encounters will often have a given item being deployed against the players... +1,+2 swords.. happens all the time in my game. One of the classic rules of D&D has always been, be careful when you ask for magic items, your next enemy may be wielding it against you. This is both normal and expected.

potions.. scrolls.. wands.. staves.. armor.. weapons...

I've had all creatures capable of using items use them, on occasion. I'm not saying deck the creatures equipment to counter a specific party layout, but CR is only a guide line, wealth, another guideline
xp, for a specific encounter.. again.. a guideline

A dragon that ambushes you on prepared ground and loses.. one xp level
Same dragon you lure into a cunning trap.. different xp level
Sleeping dragon ganked by an avalanche.. still another xp level

Your Pathfinder my vary

I had an Orc army, led by a Orc chief, who was possessed by a sword he discovered. The players were hard pressed to out maneuver this orc who was a cunning strategist with multiple layers of contingency plans. Orc chief was level 4.. the sword.. +3 weapon (cursed), far beyond anything the orc should have had. but it made a great plot device.
The final battle, a satisfying conclusion

Everyone had fun and no one made mention of CR, Wealth, or encounter balance because it was fun, and challenging.

My players are smart, resourceful, adaptive, cunning and catch me off guard on multiple occasions. They take notes, have long memories, and rarely take the same tactic twice.

If I ran encounters strictly by CR.. it would be a cakewalk, and more importantly, they wouldn't have nearly as much fun, or have as great a sense of accomplishment

Use the stat blocks as written, and all other treasure will be in bales of cotton/hay.. figure 5 sp a bale... at 50 lbs per bale...
60,000 gp
that should be about 3000 tons
the average cart can carry 1 ton (maybe)
so that should take them.. months and or years to move to market :)
this lesson in absurdity brought to you by the thought
if the monster is not allowed to use its wealth..
then why should the players :)

Rolemaster was my primary system for the better part of 15 years
I have complete sets of RM classic, RMSS and RMFRP on my shelves
I even have Spacemaster, Spacemaster Privateers, and The initial HARP books.
Left the system after the edition warriors succeeded in bringing back RM2
Been considering Hero 5th, Hero 6th, BRP and Savage worlds as my next main systems

I gave a my party a small cat statue, if you pet it and said a command word, it would cast cats grace, lasts 10 rounds
however if you just pet it, it acted like a real cat till you picked it up and put it back in your pocket/stopped interacting with it

I've read about half the thread so far so if I recover some ground, forgive me, but I have some thoughts on the role-player vs. Optimizer/Power Gamer/Min-Max debate.
In D&D 3.x onwards, some level of optimization is mandated. Challenge rating specifically states that monsters are built with the expectation of a certain party size with specific levels of gear. If you remove said gear from the party, the encounter level and difficulty changes drastically.
Personally I view Optimizers/Power Gamers/Munchkins/Min-Maxers as varying degrees of the same mentality.
Optimizers are the high school football players. They have some knowledge, and use that to their advantage. They seek to make the most powerful character they can without seeming to blatant or over the top. Role-players can look at the optimizer and think they can get onto the field with them. The optimizer will whine about them being there and not playing the game "right", but the difference in ability isn't so stark as to be detrimental to the party overall. Optimizers tend to like to blame non-optimized party members for TPK's, even though Challenge ratings are not geared to optimized parties, but for a blend of classes and gear ratings.
Power Gamers are like College Football players. They have a strong skill set and advanced knowledge of certain aspects of the game. They make characters that are very focused and skilled in specific areas, expecting other characters to pick their skills around the glaring flaws in their character. This is the fighter that needs a high charisma "Face" in the party etc, if the player is ever isolated/separated from the party; it's very easy to exploit the flaws. Any character creation decision made with the thought, well "such and such class" will handle those situations, is a sign of this mentality. As in real life, when the college football player who coasts through classes on his athletic talent is done with college and meets real life, comedy ensues. Role-players may admire the builds and skill sets, but no one really expects to get onto the same field and compete for long periods.
Min-Maxers/Power Gamers are the Pro-level football players. Their characters are freakish to look at, almost broken in every aspect except those few area's the player chose to excel, and in those areas, they are almost unbeatable or completely broken. No role-player wants to be in a game with one, and in most cases the only way these players find games are with inexperienced GM's or with new groups of players who haven’t heard about them yet.
Overall the primary mentality of these player types (in my experience) is that if you are not seeking to maximize your combat effectiveness, "you're not doing it right". In non combat oriented campaigns with little or no combat, most of these players end up feeling lost/confused or "bored".

Rolemaster RMSS/RMFRP (MERP)
Shadowrun 2nd/3rd (own none of the 4th ed)
BECMI (Loved this as a teenager)
Traveller in its various incarnations
Palladium-FRP/TMNT/Ninijas, Beyond the supernatural (GHOSTBUSTERS!) etc

Honerable Mention: I own like 20+s Hero books (no supers stuff) and the 3 new 6th ed
books, but Ive never RUN the game. The *concept* seems awesome, its just hard to come to grips with

I'm preparing to run the Rise of the Runelords AP. This should cover levels 1 to around 15. We are using pathfinder core rules/books only, with allowances for the playtest classes. My rules on splat books is fairly simple, If I dont personally own the book, its not allowed (And I only own Pathfinder Core books atm).
My group currently has 3 players and we are seeking 1-2 more players to round out the group. We meet every other saturday, from Noon till about 9pm (with dinner break). The game will have a character creation day once we have 4+ players.
Next Scheduled game dates are 12/12/09, 12/26/09, 01/09/10, 01/23/10, 02/06/10. Since real life happens we sometimes have to shift a game date to sunday, but its fairly rare.
I host the game at my house, everyone brings snacks for the group to share, dinner responsibilities are rotated throughout the group. (Everyone looks forward to my wifes insane cooking skills)
I live in maricopa, its about 30 mins from Tempe/Chandler area. We have gamers who come all the way from north phoenix (60-90 mins drive time) They carpool so that car is full for now. We are all in our mid 30's, Employed looking to have some fun, kill some monsters and have fun and eat well.
If you're interested, post here and we can arrange a meeting

Ok I'm trying to understand something that most of you probably have already internalized, which is basically how to determine how natural attacks work for creatures.

Now for most characters, its simply subtract 5 from the base attack bonus, if you have a positive number greater than 0, they can take another attack, and you can repeat this proccess until the final number is 0 or less

I have found there are little rule gotcha's scattered about the various texts and its a little confusing.

Pathfinder CORE PG 182
You do not receive additional natural attacks for a high base attack bonus. Instead, you receive additional attack rolls for multiple limb and body parts capable of making the attack (as noted by the race or ability that grants the attacks). If you possess only one natural attack (such as a bite—two claw attacks do not qualify), you add 1–1/2 times your Strength bonus on damage rolls made with that attack. Some natural attacks are denoted as secondary natural attacks, such as tails and wings. Attacks with secondary natural attacks are made using your base attack bonus minus 5. These attacks deal an amount of damage depending on their type, but you only add half your Strength modifier on damage rolls.

Moster Introduction (GRD)
Melee: The creature's melee attacks are listed here, with its attack roll modifier listed after the attack's name followed by the damage in parentheses.

Now if you look at the young red dragon...
BAB is listed as 11
Str is 25 (+7)
Melee bite +17 (2d6+10), 2 claws +17 (1d8+7), 2 wings +12 (1d6+3), tail slap +12 (1d8+10)
Now Bites and claws are Primary attacks, the wings and tailslaps are secondary

So how many bites, claws, wing bashes and tail swipes does a dragon get
1 Primary + 1 Secondary? Does he get them all?

If some sadistic godling damages the sail portion of a dragons wings so he cannot fly, and tosses him into a pit, what kind of blender is he?